In the first publication of the international patent application WO 2011/000442 A1 such a processing station for planar substrates is disclosed, which is implemented as a screen printing processing station. Untreated substrates, particularly unprinted solar cell wafers, are delivered to print nests by the conveyor lines, then, the print nests are moved on a planar table to one of two screen printing stations. After printing the solar cell wafers, the print nests are returned to their initial point and the printed solar cell wafers are again transferred to the conveyor lines.
The first publication of the international patent application WO 2009/141319 A1 discloses an essentially similar screen printing station for solar cell wafers, wherein a total of four print nests are disposed on a rotary indexing table. Using the rotary indexing table, the solar cell wafers on the respective printing nests are moved to the screen printing stations and back to the conveyor lines. The conveyor lines are provided with lift belts in the vicinity of transfer points to the print nests, to keep the travel path or trajectory of the print nests clear and allow movement of the print nests to the respective transfer point. The solar cell wafers may also be treated in a so-called cross-flow configuration, wherein they are transferred from the first conveyor line to the print nest, after printing of the solar cell wafers the print nest is moved to the second conveyor line, and then the printed solar cell wafers are moved away by means of the second conveyor line.